2006 ULM FACULTY SURVEY RESULTS
ULM Faculty Senate Survey—Spring 2006
Number of responses
Arts & Sciences
121
51.9%
Health Sciences
33
14.2%
Business Administration
25
10.7%
Pharmcy
30
12.9%
Education & Human Development
20
8.6%
4
1.7%
233
100.0%
Missing Data (College not identified)
Total
Note: These responses represent approximately 55% of the faculty.
Tenured
121
51.9%
Not Tenured
64
27.5%
Non-t-track
45
19.3%
3
1.3%
233
100.0%
Missing data (status not identified)
Total
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2006 ULM FACULTY SURVEY RESULTS
Part 1. Setting Priorities
Please place a check mark next to five items on the following list, and only five, that you
believe are the most important issues facing faculty and/or the University.
Not
Checked
Checked
_______Resources to do my job. (Resjob)
106
126
NR
1
_____Department/program staffing.
(DeptStaf)
122
110
1
_____Recruiting and retaining faculty.
(Recruit)
127
105
1
_____Recognizing and rewarding existing
faculty. (Recogniz)
109
123
1
_____Employment security. (EmplSec)
177
55
1
_____Workplace safety. (WorkSafe)
224
8
1
_____Freedom of expression on campus.
(FreeExpr)
182
50
1
_____ ‘Esprit des corps’ and general morale
among faculty. (Esprit)
113
119
1
_____Promotion, tenure, and post-tenure
review policies. (P&T)
168
64
1
_____Communication between
administration and faculty. (Comm)
103
129
1
_____Faculty development. (FacDevlp)
154
78
1
_____Teaching loads. (TchLoad)
152
80
1
_____Quality of classrooms and labs.
(QualRoom)
166
66
1
_____Security of teaching resources on
campus. (EquipSec)
209
23
1
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2006 ULM FACULTY SURVEY RESULTS
Part 1. Setting Priorities
EquipSec
Issue (see p. 2 for meaning of variables)
QualRoom
TchLoad
FacDevlp
Comm
P&T
Esprit
Percent
Checked
FreeExpr
WorkSafe
EmplSec
Recogniz
Recruit
DeptStaf
Resjob
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
Percent of Respondents (~55% of Faculty)
5/10/06
60.0%
2006 ULM FACULTY SURVEY RESULTS
Part 2. Identifying Concerns
Please indicate whether you agree or
disagree with the following statements.
1. The University is moving in a positive direction.
(PosMOve)
2. The physical appearance of the ULM campus is
improving. (PhysApp)
3. The academic environment of ULM is conducive
to teaching and learning. (AcEnvCon)
4. The academic environment of ULM is improving.
(AcEnvImp)
5. Evaluation policies for faculty are well-defined.
(EvalDefn)
6. Criteria for evaluation are communicated
effectively. (EvalComm)
7. Merit evaluation policies for faculty are welldefined. (MeritDef)
8. The equipment on campus works to my
satisfaction. (EqipGood)
9. My workload is manageable. (WrkLdOk)
10. My workload allows adequate interaction with
my students. (WrkLdInt)
11. Levels of staffing facilitate effective interaction
with my students. (StaffInt)
12. Class size is appropriate to the subject matter I
teach. (ClasSize)
13. Classroom size is appropriate to the subject
matter I teach. (RoomSize)
14. Shared governance is important in determining
the direction of the unitversity. (ShrGvImp)
15. Faculty have adequate opportunity to participate
in the governance of the university. (ShrGvOpp)
16. The faculty fully participates in the governance
of the university. (FullPart)
17. Faculty participation in governance is
encouraged by the administration. (ShrGvEnc)
18. The role of the ULM Faculty Senate is clear.
(Fsrole)
19. The goals of the ULM Faculty Senate are clear.
(FSgoals)
20. The ULM Faculty Senate is effectively
representing the interests of the ULM faculty.
(FSeffect)
SA=Strongly Agree; A=Agree; U=undecided/no response;
D=Disagree; SD=Strongly Disagree
SA
A
U
D
SD
NR
47
85
33
45
17
6
132
97
1
0
0
3
14
103
46
56
10
4
17
80
51
55
24
6
3
43
49
89
46
3
3
42
47
91
45
5
3
34
41
97
55
3
9
99
10
121
39
16
67
60
15
24
4
2
16
120
22
54
18
3
7
75
39
74
33
4
25
137
17
36
15
3
24
148
22
27
9
3
118
78
18
10
7
2
7
44
63
62
55
2
4
10
62
78
77
2
8
41
72
50
59
3
8
31
67
81
43
3
9
26
77
74
44
3
9
32
104
46
39
3
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2006 ULM FACULTY SURVEY RESULTS
Identification of Concerns
FSeffect
Area of Possible Concern (see p. 4 for meaning of variables)
FSgoals
FSrole
ShGovEnc
FullPart
ShrGvOpp
ShrGvImp
RoomSize
ClasSize
Disagree
StaffInt
Undecided
Agree
WrkLdInt
WrkLdOk
EqipGood
MeritDef
EvalComm
EvalDefn
AcEnvImp
AcEnvCon
PhysApp
PosMove
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
70.0%
80.0%
90.0% 100.0%
Percentage of Respondents (~55% of Faculty)
5/10/06
PosMove
0.0%
10.0%
2006
FACULTY
20.0%ULM
30.0%
40.0%SURVEY
50.0% RESULTS
60.0% 70.0%
80.0%
90.0% 100.0%
Percentage of Respondents (~55% of Faculty)
Part 3. Relationship to University
Please answer the following questions to provide some information about you, the respondent. All
answers are anonymous.
1. Have you recently considered seeking
employment opportunities elsewhere?
153 yes
If so, rank the factors influencing your job search
(where #1 =’s most important):
rank:
1
_____salary
50
_____work environment
63
_____tenure considerations
5
_____personal considerations
29
_____job security
22
2. Have you recently applied for employment elsewhere?
68 yes
If so, rank the factors influencing your application
for alternative employment (where #1 =’s most
important):
rank:
1
_____salary
23
_____work environment
24
_____tenure considerations
3
_____personal considerations
13
_____job security
9
3. Is your department/program adequately staffed?
If not, is this due to: (check all that apply)
______Budget appropriation
______Inability to attract applicants
______ULM’s offered salary
______Administrative decisions
______Program decline
______Don’t know
4. In which College are you a faculty member?
______Arts and Sciences
______Health Sciences
______Business Administration
______Pharmacy
______Education and Human Development
5. Are you tenured?
76 no
4 NR
2
31
29
7
31
19
3
30
19
11
18
19
158 no
7 nr
2
11
19
2
13
10
3
15
7
4
9
7
35 yes
182 no
Not
Checked
Checked
48
111
101
62
156
162
125
65
71
110
16
10
4
8
9
17
22
26
5
5
5
48
9
14
4
5
2
7
7
13
5
2
1
21
5
4
13 don’t know
121
33
25
30
20
229
121 yes
5/10/06
64 no
45 not tenure track
3 NR
2006 ULM FACULTY SURVEY RESULTS
6. Identify who/what you credit with the positive
elements of your job (Select all that apply):
_____ president (PresPos)
_____provost (ProvPos)
_____dean of college (DeanPos)
_____department head (DHpos)
_____colleagues (ClgsPos)
_____students (StuPos)
_____other (OtherPos)
Not
Checked
Checked
171
201
101
79
61
57
208
59
29
128
151
169
173
22
Not
Checked
Checked
110
65
149
155
163
167
148
82
127
43
37
29
25
44
NR
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
7. Identify who/what you credit with the negative
elements of your job (Select all that apply):
_____president (PresNeg)
_____provost (ProvNeg)
_____dean of college (DeanNeg)
_____department head (DHneg)
_____colleagues (ClgsNeg)
_____students (StuNeg)
_____other (OtherNeg)
5/10/06
NR
41
41
41
41
41
41
41
2006 ULM FACULTY SURVEY RESULTS
INFLUENCES
OtherNeg
StuNeg
ClgsNeg
Dhneg
% Yes
DeanNeg
ProvNeg
PresNeg
OtherPos
StuPos
ClgsPos
DHpos
DeanPos
ProvPos
PresPos
0.0%
10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0% 80.0%
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2006 ULM FACULTY SURVEY RESULTS
Positive & Negative Elements
OtherNeg
StuNeg
ClgsNeg
Dhneg
% Missing
% No
% Yes
DeanNeg
ProvNeg
PresNeg
OtherPos
StuPos
ClgsPos
DHpos
DeanPos
ProvPos
PresPos
0.0%
20.0%
40.0%
60.0%
5/11/06
80.0%
100.0%
2006 ULM FACULTY SURVEY: SUMMARY OF COMMENTS
ULM Faculty, Faculty Senate, and Administrators:
Many thanks to all faculty who participated in the survey. You are greatly
appreciated. It’s a busy time of year, and if you did not participate, know that this
kind of internal review will be part of every Spring.
Of the 233 questionnaries returned (~55% of the faculty responded), 83
questionnaires (37% of the responding population) were returned with written
comments in Part IV of the survey. Some comments were very brief, others devoted
pages to the opportunity to express concerns, issues and priorities. Silence can be
read in many ways: as expressing satisfaction, as feeling that such input is futile, that
writing is yet another time consuming task among other more pressing priorities. As
one respondent put it, “Is this business as usual, or something different?” Opinion
research recognizes that for every opinion written and shared with a governance
(committee/body/congress), the thinking of several who did not take the time to write,
or were not certain of what might be said, become represented Noelle-Neumann,
1981; Glynn & McLeod, 1984). So while the subjective reports of 83 people are not
everyone’s thoughts, the range of thinking among the entire faculty responding to this
survey is represented, in the emergent themes of the discourse under analysis. These
comments were grouped around themes to facilitate analysis. These comments, as
raw transcripts and unedited thematized report, at present are available for supervised
reading by Faculty and Administrators (with university identification); please contact
the President of the Faculty Senate (John Rettenmayer until June 30, Dorothy
Schween starting July 1).
The written comment fell into patterns or categories that move from 1) Perceptions
of the Faculty Senate, to 2) Faculty Workload, to 3) Faculty Development, to 4)
Recruiting and Retaining Faculty, and to 5) Managerial Style. The final three
themes present 6) Perceived Losses, 7) Perceived Gains, and 8) Possible
Improvements. Of course, such thematic boundaries are never fixed, as one informs
another, which informs the whole. Some issues are reiterated but a full spectrum of
positive and negative observations were presented, reflecting cynicism and pessimism
to hope that positive steps will strengthen our institutional functioning. As the
sociologist Arthur Frank notes, “Any analysis is always left gazing at what remains in
excess of the analyzable. What is testified to remains the really real, and in the end
what counts as duties toward it.”
What follows is a compression of the feedback evident in the themes.
1) Faculty Senate received praise and critique of the survey itself; questions about what would
be done with the results of the survey; qualifiers about how the questions were interpreted and
understood by the respondent; semantic clarifications; suggestions for future questions, other
variations on questions. The range of views regarding the work, functioning, and role of the
MAY 10, 2006
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2006 ULM FACULTY SURVEY: SUMMARY OF COMMENTS
faculty senate display appreciation and chastisement: appreciation for the invisible, thankless,
and unrecognized contributions of an active senate; chastisement for private agendas, poor
communication with constituents, lack of orderly meetings. The Faculty Senate is seen as
barely existing; left out or bypassed in the shared governance it aspires to; allowing the
administration to claim shared governance; as comprised of faculty near the end of their careers
seeking promotion, security, and self-aggrandizement.
2) Faculty Workload: Faculty expressed concern over teaching loads and class sizes, limited
support services and resources to do their jobs. There are expectations of teaching, research and
service which are standard to any faculty position. However the additional clerical workload on
faculty compromises abilities to focus on the expectations by which faculty are traditionally
evaluated. New(er) faculty felt mentors would be helpful for orientation to the department,
colleges, and institution; for learning policies and procedures, and for preparing for tenure
review.
3) Faculty Development: Again, new(er) faculty note that familiarity with procedures is
assumed, rather than effectively communicated, and that mentoring program(s) would be
helpful. Other requests from faculty focused on money to travel to conferences and workshops;
stronger support from colleagues in the form of collegiality, less competitive undermining, less
complaining if unaccompanied by solution-oriented thinking. The stress level of faculty was
observed to impact abilities to support one another, and to create fears of raising issues.
4) Recruiting and Retaining Faculty: To recruit, departments need early authorization to
advertise new positions: we seem to wait until the last minute. Salaries are too low to be
competitive. We continue to lose faculty. Salaries and other factors make replacement difficult
and/or unsupported.
5) Managerial Style: Administration was applauded, criticized, and suggestions for
improvement were made. They were applauded for having stopped an institutional downward
spiral 4 years ago; as having initially been willing to listen, willing to seek out alternative points
of view, and for changing the “face” of ULM. Programs strengthened or supported by
administrative changes evince and perceive a sense of security, well-being, and encouragement.
Managerial style is criticized as being “dictatorial,” evidencing a general lack of respect for
faculty, having and producing a “siege mentality.” Decisions seemingly are made with little or
no faculty involvement. There is too much administrative “micromanaging” in academic
decision making, a “general lack of respect for faculty and Deans,” and diminishing autonomy
of staff, faculty, departments, and colleges. Departmental identity through loss of office staff
and reorganization. Another issue raised frequently is administrative hiring and firing of faculty
without consultation with Deans, department heads or faculty. Communication issues are
central in the critique of managerial styles: too little communication between faculty and
administration; the communication between the levels of administration being inconsistent and
contradictory; the lack of internal communication about ULM to ULM, as many are surprised
to hear news first through local media. Suggestions included so-called 360 degree evaluation
of administrators (just as faculty are evaluated), the use of consistent and factual information to
make decisions; to improve communication, to reprioritize morale, and to train administrators
on all levels regarding the management of faculty. Administration has only recently voiced
desire to “re-evaluate” but has no way or proposed way of monitoring effectiveness of the
changes.
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2006 ULM FACULTY SURVEY: SUMMARY OF COMMENTS
There are conflicting perceptions of what “student centered” means and while the level, number,
quality and visibility of student activities have increased, questions revolve around the
educational soundness of “student-centeredness.” Increasing class size is a quality of
education issue that may unfairly be reflected in learning outcomes and student evaluations.
6) Perceived Losses: faculty, cohesiveness, bonding, diversity, fairness, equity, faculty
visibility and availability, access, morale, loyalty, faculty/student relations.
7) Perceived Gains: Great copy center and satellites; improved appearance of the campus;
more student activities, improved recruitment, support divisions like the bookstore, signs,
admissions office; forward movement.
8) Possible Improvements? One office that controls all classroom technology; departments
that willingly share instructional technology; a plan for equipment updates; equipment security;
money, secretaries, and other resources enabling faculty to do their jobs; better library
resources.
________________________________________________________________________________
We have a wonderful opportunity to do something with this information about faculty
perceptions of the state of the university and problems that need to be addressed. We,
like all human institutions, are trying to work out our own changed and changing
identity, and part of that is learning what we think. The hope of such work is that the
voicings of concerns, issues and priorities are valued, are allowed into the community
that is ULM, and incorporated into our history and future decisions, as we progress
toward the kind of place we collectively want to be.
MAY 10, 2006
Page 3 of 3